American Horror Story: Coven - Witch Hunt
by deathsquidding
Summary: After the death of her mother, Cordelia Goode has risen to the title of Supreme of a witch coven in New Orleans - and as her first act, she has outed witches to the world, leading them into a new era where they can thrive alongside humans. But with this revelation comes terrible backlash, thrusting them into even more danger. Can the coven protect themselves from humanity?
1. Prelude

"If you don't want to dissect a dead frog, you'll have to dissect a live one."

My eyes scanned the scene. A modern science classroom, full of middle school students seated at high desks, metallic trays in front of them displaying dead, splay-legged frogs pinned into the soft rubbery guards. All eyes were turned towards a window desk, where the teacher held a scalpel in a young woman's hand, forcing it toward the frog – only this one wasn't dead. I could feel the life radiating off the little creature, hear its heartbeat race as the sharp edge came closer and closer.

The second I lay eyes on her I knew that this had to be her own personal hell. Even as powerful as I was, being in alternate hells could be very disorienting; things glitched and slid in and out of focus, leaping from moment to moment when they lagged. Only the girl was crystal clear – early twenties, unkempt blonde hair, and pale skin hidden under an all-black ensemble. Sweat gleamed off her face, contorted in anguish, as she let out a devastated scream when the blade pressed deep into the frog. She threw her head back in agony as I felt the frog's life trickle away slowly, blood seeping from the deep cut down its belly.

When the incision was complete, the teacher walked briskly back to his desk at the back of the class. This young woman sobbed violently, shaking as she desperately held her trembling hands over the metal tray. Curious, I moved closer, passing through the classroom as though it were nothing but a thick fog. I peered over her shoulder as she whispered small words down at the little, mutilated frog… but it was too late. The frog's life was gone.

Shaking my head, I turned to leave, already releasing the illusion from my grasp when I suddenly felt a tug from behind me, as though a fist had clenched my heart and was dragging it backward. I whipped around just in time to see the wound on the frog's belly heal itself instantaneously, then witnessed the little creature flip onto its feet and croak weakly. The life radiated from its healed body as though it had never left.

This had to be a witch.

I shook my head in disapproval. Why the witches seemed intent on flipping between their reality and the underworld as if it were some kind of sport never made sense to me; it seemed this one was too late. She mustn't have returned to the world of the living in enough time – she was as cold and dead as any other.

"Mr. Kramer, she did it again!"

A boy, seated at a table just next to her, was peering down at the reanimated creature. I watched as the miserable middle school teacher marched back to the young witch's desk, ignoring her feeble retorts as he lifted the scalpel once again and thrust it into her hands.

"No, no, no, please, please don't make me kill a living thing, please don't!" The young woman was screeching at the top of her lungs in a hoarse, scratchy voice touched with a Southern accent. It was pathetic to watch, to be perfectly honest – a young person, stolen before her time, trapped in an endless loop of horrors. I shook my head and waved a hand just before the teacher opened his mouth.

As though I had pressed a pause button, every person in the room besides the witch, the frog and me – the teacher, the students, the tattletale boy – froze in their positions. Not realizing for a moment, the young woman continued yelling, protesting against the teacher, her eyes squeezed shut.

"Shhh, shhh," I muttered to her quietly. "There's no need to be afraid, young one."

She opened her eyes and looked around, sweat gleaming on her forehead. Then she began to cry, her shoulders rising and falling with each heavy sob. "Oh please, oh please God, please free me from this! Please, I beg of you! Let me go!" she wailed, clutching my coat and resting her head on my stomach.

"Relax, child," I said a little louder. But she was so weak and so agonized that she tumbled off her stool, melting into a puddle of tears and pain. Even I was surprised; I'd seen hells full of boredom, full of sadness and rage, and even agony – whenever the pain made sense. But never had I ever seen such compassion in a human.

Not a human, I had to remind myself. A witch. Taken before her time by her own overconfidence.

"You do not belong here, _ma cherie_," I whispered, bending down. She kept her head hidden in her arms, wailing softly to herself. Blood coated her small, pale hands, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor soul. I lifted a hand and stroked it lightly. "When will your kind learn that hell is no play place?" I clicked my tongue. "No one will save you here, little one."

She looked up at me, her eyes as wide as the moon, glowing in misery. "Please, please, send me somewhere else, send me anywhere else!" she begged. "I can't, I can't live like this anymore, I can't, I can't…"

"Of course you can't," I answered softly. "The underworld is no place for living. Surely you knew that."

She began to wail again, and hid her face once more. In all the eternities that I had spent passing through the dark afterlives of helpless souls, innocent and guilty, never had I once felt even a touch of pity. But seeing the witch writhe on the ground, so young and pure, I couldn't help but feel badly for her. And so I rose to my feet and pulled her up with me.

At first she resisted, obviously terrified and untrusting. I rolled my eyes. "Come, come, before I change my mind," I growled at her. She sniffled and looked up at me, then began staggering to her feet. With my free hand I lifted the reanimated frog off the dissection tray and examined it. No scars, no damage… a perfect piece of life in the land of the dead. Something not everyone could manage.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"You want to leave, no?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. She nodded vehemently. "Then I will return you to the land of the living, my dear. It's clear you do not belong here… not yet, anyway." I turned and pulled her along, through the classroom that was her own hell.

"But… but I don't understand," she began.

"You may find the mortal world will have changed for you, of course," I told her. "Most find it has. But when your time comes I will be back for you, _ma cherie_, and that time I won't be quite so forgiving. Make it count."

And with that the prison of horrors closed behind us, fading into darkness as I pulled her through the fabrics of reality to the world she once called home.


	2. Man on Fire

** Isabel**

* * *

><p>It was moments like this when I had to pinch myself, literally pinch myself, to make sure I wasn't in some kind of dream. But I suppose if I was asleep, I should've woken up long ago.<p>

I guess the realization that witches were, indeed, real, living things shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. It was about a month after Cordelia Goode, daughter of celebrity socialite Fiona Goode, rocked the world with news it could seemingly never recover from: magic was very real and very alive, and for hundreds of years a secret coven of these witches had been hiding out in New Orleans after the Salem witch trials made them flee from the east. I could remember hearing the news as if it were yesterday – sitting on the floor of my living room, staring at the TV, the shatter of a dish my mother was drying as it hit the floor when Cordelia Goode came forward. As expected, many people thought it was a joke, or a conspiracy – but for us it had to be true.

I was fourteen years old when my powers developed. They made as little sense to me as they did to anyone else; I was arguing with my mother over a boy I'd been seeing, so angry I was almost seeing red. I had let out a scream of rage, and in that moment, every light bulb, every wall socket, every piece of technology in our little kitchen exploded in a shower of sparks. Neither of us knew what had happened, and we agreed to keep it quiet.

Only my powers wouldn't go away. In times when I was extremely angry, or happy, something inside of me – a manifestation of all the energy inside of me – crashed away from my body like an invisible wave, short circuiting every electrical device in my path. Things came to a head when my boyfriend and I were making out in his room when I was fifteen, and his lamp exploded like a bomb next to his bed, embedding a shard of glass into his neck. He lived, but he was terrified of me ever since – frankly, I was terrified of myself as well.

My little family, my mother and I, weren't the kind of people to investigate the paranormal, and we didn't exactly have the resources or connections to know what questions to ask and to whom. I practiced yoga and breathing techniques, I read every self-help book there was out there, I meditated twice a day, all in an attempt to quell whatever it was inside of me that caused these supernatural occurrences. But in secret, late at night, I would try to let it out in tiny bursts, just to see if I could control it… and as I got older, I got better at it. By the time I was seventeen years old and the identity of witches was revealed, all I had to do was cast a glance at a lamp to turn it on or off. And it was pretty sweet.

Of course, my mother and I took the first flight we could find to New Orleans when Cordelia – tenderly called the "Goode Witch of the South" by the media – aired an open invitation for young witches across the United States, on live TV, to contact her any way they could in Louisiana to find a place to stay at her academy. If I was scared of what waited for me there, my mother was terrified. But neither of us knew what to do, and this seemed to be the best option.

That brought me to waiting in the long white hallway inside of Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies, waiting for my turn to be brought before the Witch Council and have my abilities assessed. Everything about the mansion was classical, ornate and detailed, but modern and frankly a little cold. Walls, ceilings, carpets were all a bright eggshell white, radiating a kind of chill I didn't feel like I could get used to. Beautiful portraits and furniture decorated every room – my mother and I were sitting on some antique loveseat that looked as if it could have been two hundred years old. The ceilings were high and airy, the doors all closed and uninviting… perhaps I had made the wrong choice.

That was my exact thought as the butler emerged from the large double doors at the end of the hallway. My mother jumped a little at the sudden break in the silence. He strode towards us awkwardly, as though he had some kind of limp. I couldn't help but think he was attractive; tall, young, pale and muscular, dressed up in a well-fit black suit, his dark eyes peering from beneath a mop of blond hair. We were the only ones left waiting.

"The Council will see you now," he said in a friendly voice. I nodded and stood up, smoothing out the folds in my dress. I took one last look at my mother, whose eyes were as round as marbles, before I followed him towards the door.

I'd heard enough gossip from the other girls the past few weeks that I felt like I knew exactly what was coming, and when the butler held open the door for me and I entered a large, airy room, it was confirmed. It was all empty except for a large, dark desk at the far end. The windows were open, and a cool autumn breeze blew the gauzy white curtains around the room.

Sure enough, seated at the desk were the two Council members: the Black Widow and the Voodoo Girl, as the other girls had called them in hushed whispers. I had only seen them from far away, when the Goode Witch made her first greeting to the horde of young women waiting on the steps of the academy about two weeks ago, and now I noticed more than ever how very different they were – and how very young they were. The Black Widow sat on the left, all flawless ivory skin and big, glittering eyes, framed by long blonde hair that hung down over her black shirt. She was thin and frankly looked a little frail, as though a strong wind could push her over. The Voodoo Girl was big and round, with smooth, dark skin stretched over her round cheeks, her small eyes watching every step I made towards them. She wore a neon orange t-shirt, and didn't for the life of her look anything like a witch. They were both so beautiful, and so intimidating, that I found it a little difficult to breath.

The door closed behind me as I took a seat in the chair opposite of them, quite a distance away. The Black Widow was flipping through a folder and scribbling things down quickly with a blue pen, while the Voodoo Girl stared me down the entire time. I decided to fold my hands in my lap and just stare down at them till one of them addressed me. I scratched my palm, hard, just to make sure one last time that I wasn't dreaming.

"So," the thinner girl began after a pause that seemed to last forever, flipped closed the folder. She fixed her glittery eyes on me, and I felt a little more comfortable. "You're the last one we're assessing. For now, at least. You are Isabel Davenport, right?" she asked, glancing down at a folder in front of her.

I nodded silently, biting my lip. The Black Widow smiled a little, while the Voodoo Girl's gaze never faltered.

"I'm Zoe, by the way," she added. "And this is Queenie. We're the council, and all we want is –"

"Can we please just get the fuck on with it?" the Voodoo Girl, Queenie, interrupted. "All we've been doing for the past two weeks is interviewing these nervous little fucks, and I want to get it over with. So," she continued, crossing her arms and glaring me down, "what is it that makes you believe you're a witch?"

I was caught off guard. She was so brash and aggressive that I almost couldn't speak. But I finally managed to clear my throat a little. "When I was fourteen, I short circuited my house with my powers," I began, my words catching in my throat a little. "I mean, I can control electricity, I think."

Zoe, the Black Widow, opened her mouth, but Queenie once again interrupted. "What do you mean, you think?"

"I just don't really know what it means," I stammered. "I just thought –"

"Then prove it," Queenie demanded.

Zoe sighed. "Please, Queenie," she breathed quietly.

The two witches sat back and looked at me carefully. I swallowed cautiously, looking around for something to demonstrate my abilities on. Lining the walls were little ornate lights, designed to look like little lanterns, but I could feel the electricity breathing off of them. They were turned off at the moment, unnecessary with the afternoon light streaming in, but they still contained energy, flowing through them in the circuit. I closed my eyes slowly, feeling every wave of power hit me, until it was all absorbed within me. I clenched my fists, holding on to the feeling as long as I could; it was uncomfortable, but like an archer taking aim, I had to focus before I released or I could explode every electric device in the room. I exhaled slowly, focused my mind, and slowly let the wave go.

I heard Zoe and Queenie gasp a little, and opened my eyes. All the lights were on, flooding the room with a warmer, yellower light than the white sunlight drifting into the academy. I breathed a sigh of relief. I managed to do it without exploding anything – that was a bonus. I didn't even know if I had it in me to summon it on command under that kind of pressure.

"Wait a sec," Queenie began again, smiling a little. She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and held it out to me. "Does that mean you can charge my phone?"

I stood up and walked over to her, more confident. She was much more approachable when she was happy. I held out my index finger and touched the phone lightly, allowing energy to flow through me into the phone easily. Within a second, the little Apple symbol lit up on the black screen, and Queenie laughed loudly.

"Bitch, that's awesome as hell!" she exclaimed, looking down at it.

"Well, it's pretty clear you belong here, Isabel," Zoe said with a small smile. "Welcome to Miss Robichaux's. Kyle," she added, looking over me at the butler, "do you mind bringing Mrs. Davenport in here?" The butler nodded and quickly left through the big doors. "This is probably a conversation you'll have with Cordelia, but this place isn't so much a school as it is kind of a group home… which means we'll be taking partial guardianship of you until your graduation. Cordelia'll be hiring tutors to come each week if you want to continue regular schooling."

I nodded, my heart lifted. For the first time in my life I felt like I was absolutely certain about something… I was a witch, and everything I had done had a reason. This was where I belonged.

The doors opened again, and the butler, Kyle, lead my mother in. She looked so small and tired next to him, practically shaking in her little sneakers as she made her way to us. In that moment I suddenly felt so much pity for her. All alone with me to deal with since I was just a baby, and now caught in the middle of New Orleans with a witch for a daughter. She pulled her jacket closer around her and took a seat in the chair next to me. Kyle took his place standing behind Zoe.

"So, Mrs. Davenport," she began, leaning forward, trying to look as kind as she could, "after our assessment, it's pretty clear to us that your daughter is, in fact, a witch. And as a young witch we think it's best for her if she were to be around her own kind."

My mother nodded, her lips pursed tightly. I thought about placing a hand on top of hers, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I did feel badly for her, but after three years of trying her best to ignore whatever it was inside of me, I just didn't really feel as close to her as I once did.

"As you know, Miss Robichaux's Academy is not just a school for young witches, but it's also a home for them," Zoe continued. "If you and Isabel both agree that she can stay here, we'd need to take partial guardianship. If you want her to continue her education as well, we –"

"Yes," my mother blurted out suddenly, cutting her off. Zoe looked surprised. I glanced over at my mother, also confused. "Yes, please. You can take her. For as long as it takes."

I felt my heart sink. That was when I realized… she wasn't afraid of the strange city, or the coven, or the scary, uncertain future of mothering a child who could control magic. She was afraid of me.

"Well, depending on how long it takes for Isabel to learn to control her powers, it could take several years," Zoe said slowly. "And then it's her own choice whether to stay with the coven or leave on her own. Of course you can visit whenever you want, too," she added hopefully.

My mother shook her head slightly. "I'll sign whatever you need. You can take Isabel," she said pointedly, her head bowed, eyes focused on her hands clasped tightly over her purse. I couldn't take my eyes off her. The mother that I knew and loved so much, who had given up almost everything for me when my father left her… was about to hand me off to complete strangers for as long as they wanted, no questions asked.

"Sign these," Queenie said, sliding a small folder of forms with a pen over to my mother. She uncapped the pen, opened the folder and immediately began scribbling away. My heart began to pound in my chest. I was angry. And being angry meant bad things could happen. I had to leave as fast as possible.

I stood up, pushing the chair back. Both witches looked up at me, as well as my own mother and the butler. "Do you mind if I see around the academy?" I asked, keeping my face and voice as composed as I could. The two Councillors looked at me suspiciously, then nodded a little. Instinctively Kyle moved around the table and gestured to the door. I forced myself to turn around and follow him to the doors, quelling the urge to turn and scream. I wish I could say it was hard. But all those years of suppression would not go to waste… not now.

The butler held the door open for me, and I kept walking. I didn't stop even when I heard the door again, or when I heard his quick footsteps following me. I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care. I had to leave before I hurt someone, or something. At the end of the hallway was another hall running horizontally, making a T shape. I turned left, toward the exit.

"Miss?" the butler said politely from behind me. I stopped and turned, my boots making a loud squeak on the hard marble floor. He was gesturing to the other direction. "Your room will be in the South Ward," he said, calmly. Something about him made me feel more comfortable. He seemed to understand how I felt, without saying another word or making another movement. He was controlled and collected, but solemn. I turned to follow him.

That was when we heard a loud scream, coming from the end of the hallway I was headed to. Kyle's head shot up, looking past me, and in a second he had started running towards the noise. With nowhere else to go, I followed him, keeping a few meters between us.

The passage lead to the large entry hall. Two giant, winding staircases lead up onto the balcony we stood on, overlooking the entry to the house. We arrived just in time to see a boy, probably my age, stagger backward from the room below in shock. From above all I could see was a mess of short blond hair and rectangular glasses balancing carefully on his nose. As he stumbled back a girl, also an older teenager, angrily stormed toward him, her black hair thick and wild.

"I didn't come here to be treated like shit, alright?!" the girl shouted. Just from her voice I could tell she was in tears.

"I was just telling you what I saw!" the boy yelped in a higher voice than I'd expected, backing up into the centre of the room. As she pursued him, more girls of all different ages and kinds flooded from the room, watching with curiosity.

The girl let out an animalistic shout of anguish and raised her hand toward him, fingers flexed apart. That moment a spout of flame erupted from the boy's shoulder, lighting his woolen sweater on fire.

He screamed, a perfect imitation of the yell we'd heard just a minute before. Kyle shouted something unintelligible and sprinted down one of the staircases as the boy fell onto the ground, rolling around in pain and panic as the fire spread down his arm and onto his chest. The girl collapsed onto the floor, sobbing, obviously overwhelmed beyond reason. The mob of young witches were screaming and shouting for help, unsure of what to do. I didn't know what there was for me to do either, and I was too shocked to move.

I turned, hearing loud footsteps behind me. Zoe and Queenie were running towards me, obviously having heard the scream as well. My mother was nowhere to be seen. Turning back to the scene, Kyle had reached the boy and had taken his jacket off, trying to stop the fire by laying it over top of him. The boy was still letting blood-curdling screeches out while the young witch who'd set him ablaze was shouting apologies over and over, sobbing wildly. Zoe and Queenie followed Kyle down the staircase towards the scuffle, and I followed after them without consciously deciding to.

The three of us stood away from the boy, sprawled out on the floor in pain, and Kyle desperately trying to help him. "What do we do?!" Zoe shouted at Queenie, rocking back and forth.

"How the hell should I know?!" the Voodoo Girl replied, panic in her voice as well.

I had never seen someone die before; I'd never even seen someone on fire before. But in that moment I realized I was witnessing both. The fire was spreading all over, coating his face as he released tortured wails that matched the sound of the crackling fire. The girl was still sprawled in a heap before the entryway to the room below the staircases, crying uncontrollably. The heat was stronger than I would've imagined.

"Move out of the way!" a voice suddenly shouted, cutting through the large hall clearly. "Move out of the way!" The mob of girls parted as quickly as they could, revealing a woman, probably mid-thirties, with pale skin, straight blonde hair and beautiful brown eyes, the tail of her dark blue dress flickering behind her. She moved quickly, the light clacking of her heels ringing just as loudly, even above the screaming and crying; it was Cordelia Goode, the "Supreme" of the coven.

The second I lay eyes on her, the strangest sensation came over me. It was like I had suddenly fixed my eye on one blade in a quickly moving fan; everything moved as quickly as before, but it suddenly seemed clearer, much more concise and manageable. A calm settled over the room; the mob of girls silenced, the crying girl looked up, and even the boy's wailing seemed to diminish a little. I could feel almost a power vibrating from her, like I could with electricity… only it was something much stronger. This energy that I couldn't process rocked over me wave by wave, filling me with confidence and contentment. This had to be the leader of the coven, the one all-powerful witch that led all others.

The Supreme took a deep breath, faced the flames spreading over the boy's body, and extended a single hand, palm outward towards the source. In an instant, as though a giant gust of wind had blown through, the fire was extinguished, leaving one of the most disturbing scenes I'd ever seen. The boy's voice was hoarse and quiet, but quiet wails leaking from his hole of a mouth. His face was black and charred, his clothes just black dust all over him. Although it seemed like it had taken an eternity, the entire scene had begun and ended in just a minute or so.

"Zoe, Queenie, take this young woman back to her room," the Supreme said as calmly as she could; however, even I could see she was shaken to the core. "Kyle, please escort these ladies back to the Common Room. I will deal with this young man."

Kyle, shaking and sweating in fear, rose to his feet, lifting his charred jacket. "If you'd all follow me, ladies," he said in a wavering voice. The girls, all shocked slowly began to follow him back through the hallway. I made to follow, but I found that my feet wouldn't move. All I could look at what the poor boy on the ground, his skin red, black and flaking off. He was going to die.

"Miss?" I heard Kyle's voice say. I looked up. Zoe and Queenie were lifting the girl to her feet, and the powerful witch was looking at me in confusion. But instead of following I looked up to the balcony overlooking the main hall where my mother wasn't standing. She must have heard the scream if the Council did; I could have been in danger. She should have wanted to protect me, but she didn't, and she probably never would again.


End file.
